Hey Jennecy!

New Year - New Post

2012-01-09T15:57:00.000-07:00

I am hoping that everyone had a fabulous Christmas. All my decor is still up and while I love it, I think this might be the week it comes down. Besides sitting around waiting for the snow to clear out the yucky air in the valley, here are some pictures of what I've been up to.

One of my Christmas presents from Cody was a card that promised "A trip to Ikea for various things you might need". While I wouldn't say I needed any of these things, they are all fun, no? I can't wait to paint my fancy Ung Drill frame some fun color and put some pretty fabric behind the glass to use as a whiteboard in my yet-to-be-started future craft room.

While at Target I spotted these bins on clearance and used them to try and organize the Jenga game that is my hallway linen/tools closet. I think the vinyl labels I cut out make it seem more organized than it is. You also can't see the top shelf of pillows waiting to avalanche and the bottom shelf of random blankets, and it's really for the best. Sorry the photo is so blurry. I was too lazy to get out the tripod and the hallway has terrible light.

Does anyone else feel like they don't eat a real vegetable (no, cheesey artichoke dip doesn't count) from November till now? Me too. So I've been craving the healthy. The husband gave me these AMAZING soup bowl and sandwich plate sets that I've been wanting for FOREVER, and I made my favorite side dish (basically quinoa with all kinds of legumes and veggies in oil & vinegar) to go with some Crumb Brothers bread with cream cheese and avocado on it. Yum & cute. I'm really lucky Cody will agree to eat this kind of stuff.

The week between Christmas and New Years we mostly hung around the house playing with Legos, puzzles, games (video and board), watching movies (I got Totoro on DVD!!) and wearing every set of PJ's that we owned. We did have a not awesome New Years eve since we spent the day/night watching the darn cat try and maneuver about the house with a circle of cardboard around her neck that we had to put on her to stop her from licking a sore. Gah. It has been there for a week and we are all going crazy. So that has not been fun. Perhaps I need to make her a cute one out of a colorful paper plate like this one.

We did however take a little road trip with some friends to the middle of nowhere Utah for a visit to the Golden Spike Historic site where I made some smashed pennies for my collection, and then jaunt over to see the Spiral Jetty.

Here are the husbands taking a try at the train rail hand cart... thingy.

The very cool steam train we got to watch go up and down the tracks. It had a very loud whistle and a very fun bell. Everyone who worked there was super excited to talk about the train.

The jetty was mostly covered by water, so you can't really see it, or walk out into it right now, but it always makes for the most surreal pictures, where it looks like you are standing somewhere between the earth and sky. Sorry if you've already seen these on FB.

Cody went out farther than the rest of us. Of course.

It's the end of the world as we know it. We feel fine, obviously.

While we were there, the colors were so bland and gray, but the pictures always look far prettier than when you're there in real life, which I think is the opposite of most landscapey things I try to take pictures of.

I just thought this sign that was posted was hilarious. I don't know why. I've never seen an opossum in real life. But I'd like to. And then scream and run away of course.

Next up for the month, the aforementioned taking down of the Christmas decor, which takes me forEVER, and then I want to see if the bins project will translate to my pantry and make our food organized/pretty, and then the massage-room-to-craft-room transformation which I am a little afraid to start truth be told. I have the furniture and the paint primer but not the motivation I guess.

Hope that your 2012 is shaping up just dandy.

Snowflake Forest

2011-12-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

Various photographs of my Christmas decor. Just because it's sparkley and pretty and more wintery than outside right now.

My shelf of random stuff. An old window, lots of snowflakes and...

These cone trees I made with fabric. Super fast & easy craft.

Also this tall thing filled with all kinds of fun decorations.

I found these beaded snowflake stockings on ebay for a fraction of their Pottery Barn price tag. Hooray for deals! They are so pretty. That ornament hanging on it I made from frozen OJ lids.

Tiny waterless snow globe I made out of a fancy mustard jar.

Slightly larger snow globe I made with a Land Cruiser inside.

On my tree, a new porcelain owl ornament from Target,

a garden gnome ornament with his basket of mushrooms,

and this gittery owl ornament.

Pretty lights on the tree, fake though it may be.

And lastly, the cat really wants to eat/play in the tree. She knows she's not supposed to though.

Those were a few of my favorite wintery decorations this year. I was obsessed with getting new stockings, and wanted to make those waterless snow globes as gifts but never got any further than making those two. Maybe next year.

On a bit of a sad note, my sweet Grandpa passed away last week at the age of 93. He was an amazing grandfather and could make or fix anything. He was kind, supportive and was full of wisdom and humor. He had the most unique writing style, I loved getting letters from and writing to him. He will be missed. xox

Grandpa Offerdahl & Jen

End of Fall Photo Dump

2011-12-12T15:21:00.003-07:00

Today I took some pictures of my Christmas tree. As I opened the folder that the camera put them into, I noticed a bunch of pictures that I had wanted to post in November but didn't. So here are a few end of fall pictures.

I posted the pretty apple pie I made for Thanksgiving on my facebook, but I made these caramel apple tarts with the leftover pie dough and the last granny smith apple and they turned out so yummy.

I don't know if anyone without cats will think this is funny, but Cody brought home this feather and the cat went crazy for it. We have to store it up high enough so she won't tear it to bits, so she sat in the hallway and stared at it forever.

Cody spends a whole day putting up our Christmas lights so that they look perfect. He has way more patience than I do. But they sure look great when he's done!

I like dressing up my little shelf for each holiday/season. I love that tall glass thing I get to fill with stuff.

Last picture of Cody before he trimmed his beard. He grew it from August till November and I loved it, but it also like it neatly trimmed like it is now. I'm still proud of him for growing it out just for me when I decided he should be a lumberjack for Halloween.

And there you have the end of fall. Stay tuned for wintery pictures. At least it looks wintery inside my home, even if there is no snow outside, I have lots of snowflakes that don't melt inside.

Win Win Winner!

2011-12-02T14:50:00.001-07:00

Happy Friday! And happy 2nd day of December! I am getting all of my bins of Christmas decor out tonight and am very very excited about filling up the house with snowflakes and glitter. Now on to the giveaway winner!

Using this very scientific method of putting all of the entries names on paper...

And then putting them in a bowl...

And picking a slip of paper out...

We have a winner! Since attack of The Mouse didn't say in her comment if she wanted labels or jewelry, I will wait for her to see this post, and then work out the specifics via email with her. If the stuff turns out cute I'll post pictures here before I send it off.

Thanks to everyone who reads my blog, and entered my giveaway! You're the best!

200th Post & a GIVEAWAY!

2011-11-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

After I posted my last two Halloween themed posts, I looked at my blog count and realized that THIS is my real & actual 200th blog post! Hooray!
Remember last November I did one even though it was only my 177th post because I really wanted to give away those cute blocks? Well, although it's sad it took me almost a year to get from 177 to 200, that means it's been long enough I can do another one right?
So without further ado, I give you:

Awww snap! Yes, I am that lame. I just said aww snap.

What am I giving away? Well, I have 2 things that I have the supplies to make right now, so if you win, you get to pick!

Option #1:
A set of super cute vinyl labels, in either black chalkboard vinyl or white dry erase vinyl! You have seen these all over right? You can put them on bins to organize toys, or jars to organize... things in jars. I made a set for some jars and gave them to my niece for her wedding and they turned out super cute!

I'll let you pick the size of the labels and send you as many as I can fit on one 8.5x12 inch sheet of vinyl, so you can have one large (like the one I put on my tray here), or 6 medium, or 12 small, whatever you want! I will ship them to you if you don't live in my area. If you are the winner I will send you a picture of some shape suggestions that I can cut and you can pick whatever you'd like.
I haven't used the dry erase vinyl yet but it looks super fun! I use Bistro Chalk Markers to write on my chalkboard vinyl, it looks so nice and neat and erases easily with a damp paper towel. (For chalkboard vinyl ideas click here & for dry erase ideas click here)

OR

Option #2:
A flower jewelry set, similar to this one I made for another niece.

I have lots of colors and sizes of flowers, and will make you a pair of earrings, and either a hair pin or ring to go with it! If you win I will send you a picture of the colors and shapes/sizes of flowers that I have. I made myself a pair of green earrings with these flowers and wear them all the time. They are so cute!

To enter, same as always just leave a comment of any sort, and if you don't have your email in your blogger profile, a way to contact you if you win! (Unless we're friends in real life and I already know how to contact you) Feel free to tweet, FB or tell friends about my giveaway. I'll probably pick a winner around December 1st.
And as always, thanks for reading my silly little blog of nothingness. It makes me happy.

UPDATE: WINNER POSTED HERE!

Candy Corn Craziness

2011-10-26T14:00:00.000-06:00

So I love a good theme. Especially any sort of Halloween theme. I kind of go a little crazy in fact. I have hosted a few Halloween parties in my day, and while they have all been fun, I think I had more fun planning for this one than any other.
Cody and I teach a class of 6 & 7 year old children at church, and they have been filling up a jar of candy each week to "earn" a class party by bringing their scriptures with them each week. I kind of knew no matter what the jar looked like I was going to have the party in October though.
So while searching for a non spooky theme, I happened to notice candy corn stuff everywhere on pinterest. It was perfect. Vaguely Halloween related, but nothing scary about it. So I ran with it.
We had our party yesterday and it was so much fun. Seriously. So much fun.

To start, I may have gone a little bonkers and given myself a candy corn manicure. So much time spent on this and it doesn't even look that great. Argh.

We decorated the railings to our front porch. Please ignore the dead plants on either side.

We started the party off crafting up some foam candy corn magnets. (All identities have been changed to protect the innocent) Heh. That candy corn hanging from the balloons was our mascot, Corny, he was on the invites and all the little tags and such.

Next we decorated some sunshine candy corn cupcakes. (Side note, I bought these cute yellow ruffled baking cups, and they baked up so cute, but then totally pulled away from the cupcakes as they cooled. Boo. Not cute.)

We sent each of their creations home with them in cute little cupcake boxes!

They took everything home in big yellow bags...

Which contained this addictive harvest crunch mix, their cupcake, their magnet...

And one of these marshmallow candy corn sucker things that turned out so cute.

After crafting, they went downstairs to play some Mario Kart, and later some went outside and played in the grass. I took a video of Cody playing duck-duck-goose with 3 of them that almost made my face explode watching the adorableness.

Lastly everyone came back upstairs for pizza, oranges, and carrots. They were all disappointed we were having water to drink, but I didn't want to worry about cleaning up spilled anything else. No one spilled. :)

It was super fun and perfectly timed (1.5 hours is the way to go) and everyone had fun. I even heard the phrase "best party ever!" bandied about. Haha. And that is my super candy corn themed blog post. The funniest thing, is that I don't even LIKE the candy, I just think it's cute.

Who loves October? I do!

2011-10-26T11:00:00.000-06:00

Anyone who knows me knows I love Halloween. I always have. I posted a ton of pictures last year, with all of my decor and what not, and I've only added a few things this year, but you know I'm going to put them on here anyway. Most of them are vinyl things I've cut out with my silhouette. And then a few random pictures of stuff at the end just for fun.

I am in love with my awesome crow plate. I found the swirly patterned plate at T.J.Maxx and added the crow in vinyl

My mantle is pretty much the same, this year I added a printable thingy I found on the webs, and that sweet tall glass thingy and filled it up with sparkley pumpkins. LOVE it. The rest of the year it has fake lemons & limes in it.

On the inside of my front door is this vinyl owl, and after Halloween I can just remove the words and leave the owl up all fall.

These pumpkins are on the inside of the door to the garage.

I got this frame last year in a swap from my friend Dawn, but I never showed it with the picture of Cody that I put in it. I think he had just had his wisdom teeth taken out and he took this photo of himself in photobooth on the computer. Haha!

Has your neighborhood been doing that "Boo-ing" thing where you get a treat left on your doorstep and then have to take a treat to 2 more neighbors? Well, here is what we made, spooky s'mores: a package of graham crackers and chocolate covered marshmallow pumpkins. They turned out cuuuute, even if we did take them too late and they sat on their porches overnight.

Have you seen these nutella & go packages?!? They are adorable and I had to get a few.

I have a whole other mess of photos that I want to post up, but I think this is enough pictures for now. So watch for another post full of candy corn fun coming s-o-o-n! (Like possibly today)

Delicious Autumn!

2011-09-29T09:39:00.001-06:00

So right now on my chalk board tray in my kitchen I have written this quote:

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. -- George Eliot

And it is true. Almost every year that I have been blogging, I have posted a rave review of the season. I fall in love with it every year. Pun intended.

I am just not a summer person, so I get super excited when it is time to wear real shoes (we don't consider flip flops real footwear at our house) and long sleeves again. When hot chocolate sounds toasty and delicious, and baking treats warms up the house nicely instead of making it swelter. When driving up the canyon is a feast for the senses, and leaves of every color seem to change before your eyes.
I nosh upon super ripe tomatoes, home made soups, fun size Halloween candy, and Honeycrisp apples (I had them last year and became obsessed, you must find and try them at least once, pretend you don't notice the price tag) when they are finally in season.
Sometimes I feel as if I hibernate in the summer, and can finally enjoy being outdoors again in the fall. Hopefully it will also snap me out of my creative slump. I make cards for birthdays and have made some jewelry here and there, but for the most part my summer has been craft free. I am looking into painting and fixing up our spare room into a crazy organized space for all of my craft store wares. I am in love with this color scheme for a crafty space right now. It seems so light and inviting. The bottom wall is already lime green, and the trim is all bright white, so I just need to change the periwinkle to aqua and I think it will work.

Here are some fun rooms done in this color scheme that I enjoy. Somehow a lot of them are baby rooms. I found them all on pinterest.

Source: newarrivalsinc.com via Jen on Pinterest

Source: houseofturquoise.com via Jen on Pinterest

Source: houzz.com via Jen on Pinterest

Source: toriejayne.blogspot.com via Jen on Pinterest

Source: suziebeezie.tumblr.com via Jen on Pinterest

What do you think? Do you love the colors together or are they too much? I am feeling the need to paint something in our house for sure. The husband doesn't understand why. He thinks if we chose a color and like it, why change it? Is it just me, or do all women enjoy updating colors throughout the house every few years? I think I fall into the normal category on this one.
Anyway, I hope to blog more in the coming months, I didn't even try in August. Blah, August. I enjoyed updating my blog header and background to reflect the season, even though when I read blogs I do it in google reader and never see other peoples blog designs. :)

Mod Podge Rocks

2011-07-25T01:46:00.001-06:00

I love Mod Podge. I use it for everything. It's such a good glue and sealant. I bought some of the new dimensional magic and used it on a card that I uploaded to my flickr photos.
The owner of the Mod Podge Rocks blog saw it there and featured it amongst other cute projects, yay!
You can see the post here: Mod Podge Rocks
It's the green & purple polka dot card. :)

Cobbed

2011-07-21T20:28:00.001-06:00

Do you ever go to a bit (or a lot) of work to make something tasty only to not be in the mood to eat it? I hate that so much. That is why I hate planning meals ahead of time. Who knows what I'll be in the mood for 5 days from now?? Anyway, I had planned, bought the groceries for and made this pretty Cobb Salad for dinner yesterday, (I found the recipe on pinterest of course. Not on pinterest yet? You're missing out!!! Let me know and I'll send you an invite!) and by the time it was done, I did not want to eat it. I ate all of the the avocados and the cucumbers and picked at some of the bacon and halfheartedly ate a few bites of everything else. I was so mad! I love cobb salad! I cooked BACON!! And eggs, and chicken. I diced and salad spinnered (hah) and still did not want to eat any of it. I felt like a little kid who'd been served creamed tuna on toast. I still remember crying and being sent to bed hungry because I did not want creamed tuna on toast. (Sorry Mom, but that stuff is gross) ;)

Cody took a picture because it ended up pretty. I did enjoy that. I hope it got eaten at my brothers house because the recipe makes a ton and we took the other 1/2 of the salad over to his house.

*I added cucumbers instead of red onions, and did crumbled blue cheese. But if I were to make it again, I would do shredded Monterrey Jack cheese, and then serve it with a good quality blue cheese dressing*

Ignored

2011-07-12T10:30:00.002-06:00

My sad little blog must feel so ignored. I have had no urge to post anything at all on here, and every time I think about blogging everything sounds so lame in my head I just give up and don't write anything.
So, here it is, all July and stuff. Everyone gets so busy in July what with vacations and holidays and the like. Even me it seems. Somehow we have something planned EVERY Friday and Saturday in July. We've enjoyed our fair share of cook outs, firework watching, playing in the mountains and on the beach, and general summertime slacking with family & friends.
Since Cody isn't in school, on week nights we take leisurely bike rides, and read books together in the living room until it's time for bed. Sweet.
I did finally finish a project I've been working on for some time, a new mat for under my office chair at the computer desk. Our old plastic one wore out, and was super annoying. I saw an idea on a blog (here) to make one out of plywood instead of buying lame plastic ones over and over. I'm pretty much in love with it. Here are some pictures:

This was while I was staining it, after Cody had cut it to fit the space, and then rounded the edges and router-ed them so they are all nice and sloped.

Then I stenciled on some grey and green dots, and varnished it up. Here it is in my office! The cat was suspicious of it at first. Cool eh?

I swear the internet makes you do crazy things. Such as- why BUY red, white, & blue sprinkles for cupcakes, when in 20 hours you can have made your own from scratch!?! What? I don't know, I thought it seemed like a good idea, and they did turn out pretty cute. They didn't actually take 20 hours to make, but I did dry them overnight before cutting them up.
(I used the recipe found here, but piped them like these)

So notice how DARK the frosting is? It was almost black, more like oreo chocolate than regular chocolate. Normally I make a simple yet delicious ganache recipe for cupcakes that uses heavy cream and bittersweet/semisweet chocolate, then whip it till it's fluffy, but I wanted to make a regular buttercream for these. I tried the Hershey's Special Dark Dutch process cocoa in them, and I can't decide if I liked it or not. I think the flavor was a little off, and the super dark color really threw me. I'll have to try it in some other recipes before I decide if I'd buy it again.

Also, I have become obsessed with The Regular Show on Cartoon Network. If you haven't seen it, you must. I don't know why, but it makes me laugh so much. Probably because I have the same sense of humor as a 12 year old boy.

So I guess I am no longer ignoring my blog. Hooray.

Flickr Feature? Me!?!

2011-05-13T17:42:00.002-06:00

I'll admit it. I LOVE it when my flickr photos show up in places on the internet because other people like them. I've had several be randomly used or blogged about here and there, but I am super excited about my latest one. When a photo of mine showed up in my google reader I wasn't sure what was going on.

Why would a blog that I was reading have a photo from my flickr account on it?? Well, that's because Silhouette featured the cards I made for my Mom (and Mother-in-law) on their blog! How exciting is that? You can read the post here. I really adore my little cutting machine, and use it probably more than I thought I would. It seems to find its way into all of my craftyness lately.

All of the below projects have used this yummy stack of paper that I got for 1/2 price too! Love!
Mother's Day Cards

More Mother's Day Cards

A gift for my Niece

I promise not to let all the nice comments people are leaving about my photo go to my head! ;) (*edit* most of which got deleted due to blogger being down yesterday. sigh)

ABC's of me

2011-05-05T19:16:00.004-06:00

I saw this list of ABC's on my crafty swap friend Olivia's page, and since I'm all about the sharing of random details of my life with the whole internet I wanted to do it too. She used an adorable old photo of herself which I loved, so here is a funny one of me. I can't even see myself in this photo very much. I look like a chipmunk.

A. Age: 34. Holy crap.
B. Bed size: Queen. Small bedroom = small bed.
C. Chore that you hate: Vacuuming. Cody usually does it for me. 2nd runner up is ironing. I am terrible at it and seem to just iron IN the wrinkles
D. Dogs: No. Puppies, YES! But sadly puppies turn into dogs so....
E. Essential start to your day: I read my email in bed on my ipod to wake up.
F. Favorite color: Green
G. Gold or Silver: Silver. My wedding ring is platinum and I love it!
H. Height: 5' 4 1/2"
I. Instruments you play: I dabbled at the guitar and can remember some songs. Ditto for the recorder from grade school. ;)
J. Job title: Slacker (Cody told me I should put Trophy Wife ~ haha)
K. Kids: Kids are great. I haven't given birth to any myself.
L. Live: In Utah right next to the mountains and I love it.
M. Mother's name: Karen ~ Hi Mom!
N. Nicknames: Hmm. None that anyone uses, my real name is Jennifer, so I guess Jen is my nickname. In high school there were so many Jennifers I went by Jen B. One person sometimes called me Jennecy. Now it's my internet nickname.
O. Overnight hospital stays: Once, my appendix got real angry and wanted out of me.
P. Pet peeve: So many! Um, ok my current one is when people type "Wha-la!" on their blogs instead of violá. Honestly, what do they THINK they're even saying??
Q. Quote from a movie: Do you wanna do something fun? Wanna go to taco bell? -Mean Girls
R. Right or left handed: LEFT - super super lefty.
S. Siblings: 2 Sisters, 4 Brothers
T. Time you wake up: It varies wildly. Today it was 3pm. I KNOW.
U. Underwear: Always
V. Vegetable you hate: Yams and soggy squash
W. What makes you run late: Everything, but usually some sort of makeup/clothing/hair catastrophe.
X. X-Rays you've had: None, but I did have some sort of stomach scan before my appendectomy.
Y. Yummy food that you make: I make good enchiladas, and cheese steak sandwiches. I love to make desserts of any type and they usually turn out yummy.
Z. Zoo animal: The large kitties. Snow leopards are my favorite.

There you have it. Me from A to Z. I hope more people try this out, my friends blogs are all super low on new posts. (You know who you are)

Things that make me happy

2011-05-01T23:08:00.004-06:00

Just a few photographs of things that are making me happy lately.

Stuff People I love have made:

This AMAZING spring gift from my friend Dawn. She knitted those super cute wrist warmers for me and I adore. I've been crushing on these kinds of gloves on etsy for so long; for all the late nights I am at the computer, and they are a treat!

She made these adorable carrots that had tiny treats wrapped into each layer, so as I unraveled the crepe paper, gifts fell out! It was crazy fun! I kept asking Cody if he wanted to unwrap one since I was clearly having a ball, but he declined. She snuck all kinds of fun things, stickers, hair clips, ribbon, & candy inside them. Genius. And we can't ignore the new gnome. I need a new plant to stick him in.

I am also totally digging my fingernails in this photo. They are those Sally Hansen nail thingies and they rock. So much more fun (and STURDY) than regular nail polish.

This soda can that is for some reason attached to wires. Cody brought it home from a lab he did for his *enter ridiculously hard engineering class name here * and I love it. He said everyone else just threw theirs away as they were leaving, but he brought his home because he knew I'd want to see. They were measuring pressure or something.

Another fun photo courtesy of the husband's nuttery. Those eyeballs he drew go perfectly with the amazon smile don't you think? He cracks me up.

Stuff I've made:

One of the wedding gifts I made for my niece. Of course I forgot to take a finished photo, so here is a work in progress one. I just LOVE that chalkboard vinyl. Oh, and we did eventually fill up the empty one with popcorn. And I doodled on the labels more. So fun.

This cute little robot ATC arrived in Australia finally, but my swap partner was not all that excited about him. Eh, I thought he was super loveable.

I love the spring bunting I made to hang over my computer screen. It's happy making.

Stuff People I don't know have made:

Super cute bird house out of children's books! I need to make one of these! Found at Craft.

Owl cheeseball?!? Oh man I love cheeseball, and owls. Found here.

These cutie pie cupcakes make me wish I'd bought (and then hung onto) some candy corns at Halloween!! Looking at this just makes me so happy and ready for sunshine days! Recipe here.

The sleeve length on this hoodie makes me giddy. I am not in love with the standard Old Navy graphics all over the front, but it didn't stop me from ordering it anyway.

This LOL Cat is my current favorite. That is some good word play.

And this is SO not a political statement, but simply made me smile. What a crazy night.

Bryce Canyon and Highway 12

2011-04-27T12:22:00.002-06:00

I really love Utah. There are so many natural wonders in every corner of it. I have lived hours from Bryce Canyon my whole life and finally we got to visit it on our way home from Arizona. I highly recommend this drive (highway 12) to all my local friends. It's gorgeous! We even got to do it during free national parks week! If we couldn't be with family on Easter, I'm glad we spent the day viewing some of God's many amazing creations.

We got into our hotel in Bryce late Saturday night, so we just went to bed and slept. The next morning it was chilly, and we looked outside and there was snow on our car! It kept snowing off & on all morning. We ate breakfast with what seemed to be all of Europe (I'm serious, there was German, French, and other languages I couldn't place being spoken in the breakfast room by 90% of the people!) and then headed into the park. We stopped by the General Store to press some pennies (yay) then hit up the overlooks. There are no railings or anything so you get a view worthy of postcards. The snow made it even more beautiful!

I love this one

Cody always has to go RIGHT to the edge of everything.

We didn't spend very long at all in the park, just enough time to get these gorgeous shots, then we headed home along Highway 12. It's a scenic byway, and boy was it ever! We stopped at almost every overlook area, and by the end of the day we were so tired of saying "Wow pretty!" we'd just get out of the car, snap a few photo's, and get back in the car wordlessly! Hah!

We saw every type of weather from snow, rain, hail, sun, wind, you name it!

Crazy right? If you made it through all of those I'm proud. I know other people's vacation pictures are boring, but I blog partly for other people to read, and partly for myself so I can remember details and how I felt. So I'm not offended if you were zzzzzz.

After we hit the end of the road, (we didn't have time to go into the Capitol Reef park, we had all of Utah to travel home through still) and got back on the freeway, things went faster but were a whole lot less pretty. ;) I am forever boycotting the Tesoro Gas station in Nephi for it's atrocious bathrooms.

The good news was that the cat wasn't hiding under the bed refusing to come out like last time we went away. She was sitting in the front window waiting for us. When we unpacked, she hopped in an empty duffle bag we'd had all our shoes in, and gave us a look that plainly said "Next time you go, you're taking me with you!" Good luck with that, cat.

And back again

2011-04-26T14:43:00.005-06:00

Another trip to Arizona was taken last week. This time for my niece Brytne's wedding. We left after Cody's class on Wednesday, drove to Las Vegas for the night, then Arizona the next day. We rented a little Chevy something or other car that Cody hated, so as not to put miles on our rapidly aging Outback.

Here are some things I love about road trips:

Free breakfasts at hotels all ready and waiting when you get up. Since I've been home I keep wandering into the kitchen when I wake up and no one has made me waffles or eggs or doughnuts. There are no hot chocolate machines or small packets of condiments. Boo.
Taking lots of photos of family and beautiful scenery. Normally I am home all day where nothing exciting, amazing or cute ever happens.
Talking all day to the husband. He's funny & I adore him.
Smashing pennies for my collection. What? I'm a nerd.

Things I hate about road trips:

Rest Stop/Gas Station bathrooms. Enough said. I missed my own bathroom more than I missed my cat.
Eating at weird places, and eating junk food all the time. I hate Denny's. How hard is it to make a turkey sandwich that is not terrible? We are happier when we just hit up a grocery store and grab some carrots, apples, and stuff to make sandwiches ourselves.
Sitting. So much sitting. In a rental car it's even worse because the seats aren't already molded to your butt shape.
Getting lost. Stupid mapquest. Stupid Frank Loyd Wright Blvd in Mesa.

Enough with the complaining, on to the photos. If you are my friend on FB or Flickr you've probably already seen some of these but here they are anyway!

We got to the temple a little early so we took pictures of ourselves for fun.

How cute is Cody's pink tie??

Natalie, Mike & Clay

The newlyweds Brytne & Nick! We love these guys.

The ring ceremony

Sweet cake. The middle layer was chocolate. ;) Yum.

The candy bar. Too cute!

Adorable flower girl Abigail. She is super sassy pants.

Sisters!

Gorgeous sunset over the golf course where the reception was held.

My nice Haylee convinced Cody to dance. Aww. To be fair, he had danced a little with me too.

Leaving amidst bubbles and camera flashes.

Everything was super adorable, and super pink & green. I loved it. The weather was gorgeous and actually not too hot for Arizona. We left the very next morning and drove to Bryce Canyon. Those pictures I will save for another very long blog post. Perhaps tomorrow. :) *edit: done!*

There's always a theme.

2011-04-11T22:41:00.001-06:00

Over the weekend the husband turned 30...something, and is now as old as I am. Hooray!
Good times were had. These good times consisted of:

Æbleskivers for breakfast

I found a recipe on the internet that didn't require buttermilk or whipping egg whites and it's my new favorite!

Decorations and presents (see my theme?)

Solo Snowshoeing in the hills above our home

Lemon Cake

(made in my new bought just for this occasion bundt pan)

The weekend also included going out for dinner, rock band playing with friends, and a shopping trip for new khakis and panini makings for dinner, but no pictures were taken during those activities. I love a good birthday celebration to change up the humdrum of every day. Any excuse for cake and banners is a good one I say.

Spring? Uhhh.

2011-04-07T17:52:00.002-06:00

So today looks like this:

Which I don't mind too much. I dislike driving in it though, it's super fat heavy wet snow that is also somehow puffy and makes for slushy roads. But I kind of feel like this weather is a direct snub to the fancy pants tray I made this weekend.

See, I must have gotten all "cart ahead of the horse" and decided to write a welcome note to spring in my kitchen.

Now this might not look like much, and I know there are chalkboard trays all over the internet, but this was kind of a labor of love.
My Grandfather lives in Washington and he is almost 93. He was cleaning out his house to move into assisted living and I got this heavy silver tray from my brother who brought back a van load of things from Grandpa's house. I was so excited! It was heavily tarnished, with layers of black and green gunk on it and I knew it would take a lot of work but I kind of enjoy shining up silver so I started polishing.
I failed to notice that the back of the platter was stamped with the words "Silver Plated Copper" on it, so when I started really rubbing some of the super dark spots, I didn't notice at first that the black areas were staying black, and that the surrounding silver was turning copper until it was too late. I was so upset I gave up and hid it in the basement for a few months.
Then I decided that since it was never going to be the shining silver tray I'd imagined, I set about cleaning it up, priming, and spray painting it bright shiny white. It turned out gorgeous, but I wanted more than just a white tray.
So I cut scalloped shape out of chalkboard vinyl (which is so fun & amazingly easy to work with!) and applied it to the middle of the tray so I can write fun things on it. I have a chalkboard marker which turns out so bright and pretty and washes off great!
I placed a few random glass vases around the tray, and am not sure if I will keep them up there, (it's in that empty space above my kitchen cabinets) but it's a fun change for now.
So maybe I should change the words on my tray to "Come ON spring!" but I'm really fine for now. I hate being hot all summer long so I'll just enjoy a few more weeks of hoodie wearing I guess.

Jen Sews! - Owl Stuffie

2011-03-08T16:28:00.000-07:00

We'll just pretend I didn't swear the whole time I was sewing this. ;)

I finished up this little guy (girl? it is covered in flowers) while Cody was in Florida this weekend. I really like it. Although when I look at it all I see are my mistakes and terrible sewing skills. Honestly, I just don't think I'll ever be good at sewing. Oh well. I just adore the brown baby wale corduroy and ric-rac, and the prints are Heidi Grace fabrics.

I also made a really cool wreath out of brown paper bags cut into scalloped circles. Usually when I see something someone has made and want to make my own of, I change things on it so it's more me, but when I saw this girls wreath I loved everything about it and basically copied it all the way down to the color of the flowers. I haven't been able to get a good photo of mine yet, but it's pretty much the same. It was both easy and more work than it looks somehow too. When I finished the wreath I used the leftover paper bag bits to make this little puffball flower. It's pretty cute too.

If you're friends with Cody on FB make sure you go see the pictures he took of the Hemingway cats. I love all the toes! They're like mittens!

Craft Photo Dump

2011-02-23T15:12:00.004-07:00

I have been on the craftwagon making crap lately.

Although most of my stuff can't be considered awesome. More like "time and supply wasting" or "hide in the closet-able", but I enjoy the act of creating so it doesn't really matter.

So here are some photos of all the stuff.

I cut out this hot pink vinyl decal and it's on the inside of my front door. I put it up for Valentine's, but I'm thinking I'll leave it up till our anniversary in June. Or longer. Who knows.

These turned out kind of funny. They were supposed to be little stickers that go on your fruit, I saw the idea here, but wanted to make my own. It was late on Valentine's eve, and I obviously thought I had gigantic fruit or something because the size ratio is crazy.

I got this paper storage box for Christmas from the in-laws and loved it, however it was super plain, so I mod-podged the crap out of it. Instantly better.

I cuted up this Ikea mirror with some adorable paper, cut outs, buttons and brads to send to my friend Shanda in a swap. I really liked how it turned out. It looks like spring.

I am not totally satisfied with this plate. This is the second attempt on it. I first primed and spray painted the plate white, then added scalloped and patterned paper, then the deer cut out. First out of vinyl, but I didn't like how it sunk into the plate and showed the paper lines beneath, so then this time I did it with cardstock and attached it with puffy foam tape. But didn't put it on straight. Argh. We'll see if I decide to do it a 3rd time.

I just sent this little owl ATC in the mail today for a swap and was sad to see him go. I was excited about making it because I only used like a quarter of a sheet of paper on the whole thing. It was orange on one side, and turquoise on the other, and I changed up parts of it with paint and ink pads.

I bought a random bag of alligator clips at Hobby Lobby and have been making lots of hair clippies. I wear one at least once a day to keep my bangs out of my face while cooking or putting on makeup or what have you. I have a bunch of plain clips left. Let me know if you'd like some and what ribbon colors you'd like and I'll make some for you.

I wrapped my bright bakers twine around these cute little paper bobbins I got from Wild Olive here. They are adorable and keep my twine nicely organized and knot free.

I just started cutting out this guy last night, and he is not at all near finished, but I am excited to see how he turns out. I am actually a super beginner sewer, I already tried to sew the round yellow fabric on and failed miserably. I will probably iron them on with some interfacing and hand stitch them for cuteness instead. Expect an update on this little guy soon.

And there you have it. This is how I deal with late winter time and not go crazy. Some people take cruises or go to Hawaii, I make junk with fabric, glitter, and glue. :)

All you need is love (love is all you need)

2011-02-15T06:00:00.001-07:00

Hope everyone had a fabulous Valentine's Day. We ate margherita pizza with roasted tomatoes and watched Chuck. You can't tell us we don't know how to have a good time.
I made these little sock monkey cards and they turned out too cute not to post.

Also, today is my wonderful Mother's birthday... Happy Birthday Mom!!
Now everyone go out and enjoy discount chocolate Tuesday. ;)
xo

February First eh?

2011-02-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

January is over. Good riddance. Hah. Although, February is starting off chilly. Literally. It is like 2º outside. We were going to do the dreaded grocery shopping tonight but instead are going to stay home, watch whatever happens to be on TV/Netflix, and huddle for warmth while eating take out because of the lack of groceries.

I was super spoiled this year on my Birthday. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends that love me enough to celebrate my aging. I received so many wonderful things, I couldn't fit all the photos. Dinner out with friends, visits from family, treats, flowers, craftiness, cute jewelry, decor and kitchen lovelies. So many pretty things and happy mail to brighten my day. Thank you all.

Not pictured is a super awesome exercise bike that my husband got us so that we can keep up our bike riding in the winter! I always hate how in the early spring/summer I can't ride my bike as far as I can at the end, so now I can "train" at home and hopefully when bike riding weather comes around my endurance will be better!

February was named after the Latin term februum, which means purification, and I can see that. It seems like a good month to actually do some of the good things I thought about doing during January. Cleaning, cleansing, doing better at things I know I can do better at. All that good stuff. :)

Meh

2011-01-20T14:15:00.001-07:00

I am at a blogging standstill. It's that "post-Christmas/pre-birthday/cold and wintery but not snowy/not enough sunlight/sleeping on a weird schedule/nothing sounds good to eat/might as well eat a spoon full of Nutella" time of year and well, there's just nothing good to say about that now is there? I get kind of Debbie Downer-ish during January, and sometimes it lasts till spring. I'm hoping to snap out of it soon this year though. I am not proud to admit that my Christmas decorations are still up, and not because they're just so cute and I'm still enjoying them, but rather because I'm just too lazy and they take sooo much time to put away. I just look at them and think... "Meh, I'll get to them later." And you know how that ends. Badly.
In fact, if I was choosing my "Theme of 2011" like everyone else out there, I think my official word of the year would be "MEH". I should totally make a wooden plaque, add some vinyl, put it in a distressed frame, add ribbons, glitter, and something vintagey, and hang it on my wall so that I could remember to feel apathetic all year. Meh, who am I kidding. That sounds like too much work. ;•)

So fun, this post is one big bummer. I'm sorry. I know what will help it out though...

Ahhhh, that's better. The worlds most adorable birds perched perfectly on a winter branch to the rescue! Thanks little birds!

Tree Trimmings

2010-12-29T09:00:00.002-07:00

I know Christmas is over, but I wrote that post about wanting to find some owl, mushroom and gnome ornaments, and I wanted to show what I ended up with this year for new ones! I love all of these! I made the snowflake/Morgan one and the glitter mushroom one myself. The only place I found Gnomes was at Ikea, they are felt and adorable. Huzzah. Oh, and the sparkley pink Hello Kitty was a gift from my awesome friend Megan. Love!

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas, and wish you a safe & sassy New Year.

tied up with strings

2010-12-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

How come it's super busy Christmas time, and I don't have enough time to get all of the things done that I actually NEED to do, yet here I am making cute little matchboxes for swapping? I don't know. Maybe because they only take like half an hour to make, maybe because I want to share my gift of paper & glue with others (hah) and maybe just MAYBE it's because I am a major procrastinator who looks for any and all excuses and time wasters before I get down to doing what needs to be done.
Regardless, I had fun crafting up this little box and filling it up with wintery goodies. I hope it makes it to Spain quickly!

It's the most wonderful time...

2010-12-06T03:30:00.011-07:00

...of the year!

We got this Gingerbread House kit at Target and man oh man it's the cutest thing ever and SO fun to make. It is however, the only thing at my house that is fully decorated for the holidays. (It was featured as the first photo in this online article HERE) My tree is up, but it's branches remain empty, my bins of decorations are filling up the living room, but haven't been opened. I have some awesome new ornaments to put on my tree this year, and I am very excited about them. I think tonight is the night for getting it all put together.

I am trying to do most of my shopping online and early this year. It's so much easier to know if you're getting a good deal than by running from store to store. Speaking of good deals, I'm hoping to get these wicked cute boots for practically half price tonight at a sale:

The hard part will then be waiting to wear them till after I officially get them for Christmas. We're not very good at that at our house. Not having any children makes it easy to just buy things and start using them right away. But where is the fun in that? We *might* be getting a new dining room table for Christmas, and we *might* have already set it up and totally started using it already. Oops. See? Hard!

I am super excited to see some of my nephews who are coming to visit this month! One is coming before Christmas, and 2 are visiting after to go snowboarding with Cody and I just love having them around. I am so lucky to have the best nieces and nephews that put up with and humor me.

Well this was completely useless and random. I guess that's what you get from a blog post written at 3 in the morning. Enjoy.

Holiday Giveaway Winner!

2010-11-29T23:27:00.002-07:00

I meant to get around to posting this before the weekend was over, but obviously I did not. So, without further useless chit-chat... here is the winner of my 200th (ish) blog post giveaway!

*
*
*

Hooray! Congrats DARCI! I am very excited! Here is what you won...

Pancake mix & little spatula in a snowman bag, the JOY blocks, and a metal "Happy Holidays" vinyl sign I made. I really hope you like everything!

Thanks for playing everyone! I hope you are getting excited for the holidays! I am going to start decorating my house for Christmas this week, and I am super happy about it.

Holiday Giveaway!

2010-11-16T17:32:00.004-07:00

Today was a cold dark drizzly day. Nothing much to be excited about. Until the mail came... and brought me a package covered in adorable tape, filled with wonderful little treats! I won a giveaway on flickr from one of my swap-bot friends in Germany! I am in love with everything, especially the little sachet of lavender that she made. I am also enjoying testing out my German reading skills to see what I have retained from high school. (Answer: very little)

I just love getting happy mail! And to pass along the happy mail karma, I am doing another giveaway!

I really wanted to hit 200 posts before the end of November, but I'm only at 177 after this one, so it's just not going to happen. I am not going to wait, because what I am giving away needs to be enjoyed during the holidays! I made these blocks last year, they are 2.5 inches square and made of poplar. I used basic grey paper on them from their "Eskimo Kisses" line and it is so adorable. I gave them to a few people and kept a set for myself, but somehow have a set leftover. I would love for someone to have them (and I have a few other treats in mind to send also)! Just a little thank you for all of my friends who read my blog!

So, here I go again...

To enter just leave a comment on this post! That's it!
If you don't have a blogger account you can post as anonymous, but please tell me who you are or leave me a way to contact you! I'll pick a winner at the end of next week!
Also, if you received these JOY blocks from me last year at Christmas and you win the giveaway, I'll come up with something else to give you unless you want another set! :)
xox

Ornamental

2010-11-03T16:37:00.001-06:00

I know it's barely November, but I'm already looking at ornaments I'd like to have on my Christmas tree this year. Most of my tree is silver, blue and snowflakey, but I also have a little bit of a woodland theme going on. I am thinking I need some sparkly red mushrooms, owls and gnomes to go with the pine cones, acorns, birds, and squirrel I already have on it. My favorite are the old world looking glass ornaments, especially if they are covered in glitter!

I love all of these, and will hopefully be able to find something like them in the stores soon!

Ornaments found at:

Cute or Scary

2010-10-26T15:07:00.001-06:00

I made these ATC's to send in a swap. It was for 1 cute & 1 scary Halloween ATC. Which kind of Halloween things do you prefer?

Cute?

Or Scary?

I like scary things (skeletons, bats etc.) that are also cute. Go figure.

Halloween Swap Time

2010-10-20T10:00:00.001-06:00

So my friend Dawn & I met in massage school in 1999, and she is kind of awesome. After hearing me raving about it & posting pictures all over the place, she decided to join swap-bot. I knew she'd be fabulous at it. I made us a private swap so we could send each other things for Halloween fun. The swap was for: something hand made, something home decoratey, and something yummy. Here is what I came up with:

A "BOO!" banner, cupcake picks & wrappers, an altered & filled matchbox, some Hershey's nuggets that I made little custom wrappers for, and a treat bowl & dishtowel. It looked really cute together and my almost favorite part is that black cat bag. The whole front is covered in black glitter, and the eyes are googley. So fun!

I was SO excited to get the package she sent to me! Even the ladies at the post office noticed how cute the box was decorated! It was filled with the most fantastic of Halloween treats:

She sent me a set of adorable/creepy owl note cards she made, the cutest ever Frankenstein photo frame, in which I am going to put a scary picture of Cody, and the coolest candy! The skeleton keys are so stinking cute! And can we just talk about that huge puffy marshmallow owl sucker!?!? I love it. I love it so much I had to bite his little ear off!

I of course took a ton of pictures of everything, the rest of which can be found in my flickr.
I also sincerely hope no one stops reading my blog because of all the Halloween posts. I might have a few more coming....

Did I mention I like Halloween?

2010-10-15T10:00:00.002-06:00

Because I'm not sure if I am posting enough about it. Or adding enough grungy borders to my pictures. Ha. My mom bought me this cupcake stand and I just HAD to bake something to put on it right?

Double chocolate cupcakes with chocolate almond frosting? Yes please.

Spooky Matchbox Love

2010-10-10T10:10:00.004-06:00

So you all know I love swap-bot right? I have had such a good time swapping with people all over the globe, and I have met so many fabulous people! It also allows me to be creative and use my crafty stash.
Anyway, one of my favorite things to swap there is matchboxes. I joined a Halloween themed matchbox swap and had SO much fun making this one.
Along with the matchbox, I sent a set of cupcake picks I made, and also a "grow your own black cat" toy for her children. I really love picturing someone opening up my swap packages and being happy.

Also, happy 10/10/10!

This is Halloween!

2010-10-08T13:30:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I put up all of my Halloween junk around the house. This week I tried to take pictures of it. The rainy and cloudy days were against me, and they all came out pretty dark. I guess that's fitting for spooky pictures.

Even though these aren't technically Halloween decor, I just love my owl towels. The one on the right was a gift from my friend Megan, and the left one I found later and they totally match! Love!

Goodies & Grass Seeds

2010-10-01T14:32:00.003-06:00

Happy October! I love making my blog all Halloween themed! Also, I've been waiting (at husbands request) to put up my Halloween decor around the house and I'm excited to do that this weekend. So, to celebrate that today is October and Friday, here is a small sampling of fun things in my etsy favorites right now. I don't really NEED any of them (except maybe those cupcake liners) but they are all so adorable they make me think I do. Just look at them and be happy.

Adorable Gnome Stuffie

Letterpress Owl Coasters

Mushroom Cupcake Liners

Venture Brothers peg people

Hydrangea Pillow

Felt Covered Owl Measuring Tape!!

Hedgehog Guest Soap

Wooden Totoro Toys

Oh, and if you're a neighbor, and you drive by my house, that IS grass seed you see sprayed in a green fuzz all over our dirt! That's right, after 6 years of slacking, we are going to try growing more than rocks & weeds!! Wish us luck that the weather stays good for at least a few more weeks!!

Dreaming of a bedroom redo

2010-09-21T10:33:00.001-06:00

I love my house. I really do. But our bedroom is small. REALLY small. With a tiny closet. I feel like I never have room to put my clothes away, so they just sit in the laundry baskets folded and clean, waiting to be worn again.

I am trying to convince Cody that if we were to get new bedroom furniture, I would have room in my drawers to put my clothes away. I also want a little wardrobe for the corner. And a new vanity. And new bedside tables. Ok, practically a whole new set.

I love the Hemnes line from Ikea, and think the clean lines & white finish of the furniture would brighten and open up the room. :

1. I currently have an upholstered headboard that we made out of my old stripey comforter. I would redo it in white and maybe colored buttons.
2. I just bought this quilt & pillow sham set from overstock. It's bright and colorful and it is a good contrast with my white sheets/bedskirt, but also goes with my red wall paint.
3. Hemnes nightstands. I want one for each side of the bed. Right now my nightstand is an awesome antique sewing machine table, but it is really tall and way above my bed height.
4. Current bedroom paint color. Eddie Bauer cabin red, 2 of the 4 walls are this color with white trim, the other 2 are just white.
5. Hemnes wardrobe. Big enough for hanging clothes in, small enough to not fill up the room.
6. Cute lampshade I got at Ikea last year. It's my favorite.
7. Candle holder wall wreath from Pier 1 imports. Hangs above my bed currently. I might repaint it a lighter color for contrast against the red wall.
8. Hemnes dresser. I would love the 8-drawer version, but it will not fit. I love this!
9. Computer desk I found at overstock that I love. I would replace my heavy old vanity with this light airy white version. I am spoiled and sit at a desk by a window to put on my makeup. It's why I always look so fabulous. Hahahaha.
10. Adorable Ingolf stool to sit at my new desk. We have the Ingolf bar stools in our kitchen and love them!

I have always wanted to sand & paint my current bedroom set that I inerhited, and make it a nice soft color with updated hardware for a future guest bedroom. I think I could make it lovely, and would love to have the depression era furniture I've inherited be more my style. Right now it's a little to honey-orangey for my taste.

Well hi there!

2010-09-01T15:31:00.000-06:00

It's September! September first to be exact. I think we all know how I feel about fall... so it's no wonder I'm loving the fact that the next 3 months are the months of fall.

Since it's back-to-school time for Cody, I made a little Amazon.com order and bought myself some YA books that are ALWAYS checked out of my library. I have very little patience for waiting, and I love owning books in a series because they look so pretty on a bookshelf. I am excited to have some light reading while he is upstairs figuring out how to save the world through engineering.

So most of you know, my massage room in my house also doubles as my craft room, gift wrapping room, and "throw it in there and shut the door" room. However, since JANUARY it has been nearly impossible to even get the door open it was so full of stuff. Not a pretty sight. After a week of some hard core organizing and throwing out of junk, my massage table is back up, and I'm open for business.

At the end of August Cody and I drove to Anthem, AZ to visit my sister and her family. We stopped at Ikea the morning we left, hoping to use the bathrooms and grab some breakfast, but were there 1/2 hour before the cafe opened. Bummer. So we took the chance to pose in the empty parking lot.

My lovely sisters and I. And I still can't believe that I survived (with makeup intact) in the 106˚ heat of Arizona.

Three of my gorgeous nieces. I am so lucky to have 8 of the greatest girls in the world that let me be their Aunt Jen. ;)

My nephew Nick & Cody. Nick is an awesome drummer, and he taught Cody & I some beats. We were terrible at it. But he tried.

Feeling blue...

2010-08-11T12:29:00.000-06:00

I've been sick with a cold for 2 weeks now. Not fun. But fine. Just found out a favorite aunt of mine passed away yesterday. Also not fun. So I guess I'm feeling a little blue.

I had a post planned about these cupcakes I made Saturday. I was tired of soup and other healthy "get well" type foods, so I made a big batch of chocolate chocolate cupcakes. They turned out yum.

But now I can't fathom why I thought I could make a whole blog post about them.

Instead, here are some things I've bought from sellers on etsy that I love. That should cheer me up a bit.

This fab apron from City Girl Aprons. I got it on sale and I love it to bits! The tie is super long and wraps around front to tie in a bow. Makes me feel cute and girly while I cook.

Little foxy wristlet from Cheryland. It fits some cash, my cell phone, keys & lipgloss. I never set it down and leave it places like I've been known to do with my purse. Plus, look how cute.

"Gnomus" print - fitted into a vintage book - from Paper Sparrow. Lives on the wall in my basement. I always imagine he's slightly grumpy, like me. Maybe it's his wool socks. I always feel itchy in wool socks.

Fabulous ironing board cover from bleuview. I loooove the ikea fabric and it fits like a dream. Almost makes ironing fun. Almost.

Gorgeous art cards from Hide n Seek. I have four of them in an ikea frame in my massage/craft room. They are so beautiful. Her art is amaaaazing.

See, now don't you feel a little bit better after seeing all that cuteness? So many talented artists out there. Next time I'll post some things I'd like to own but don't. That could be a looong post. Now if you don't mind, I've got to go hunt down another box of kleenex.

Tutorial: Butter

2010-07-22T22:30:00.001-06:00

So, people are always posting clever things on blogs. Tutorials are some of my favorite things. I love looking at a few pictures to get the gist of "how to" do something the right way, and then just doing it my own way and crapping it up wonderfully.
I am usually not good enough at anything in particular to bother making a tutorial about it. That is, until today.
I proudly introduce TUTORIAL TUESDAY; presented on Thursday: (A one time event)

HOW TO EAT HALF A STICK OF BUTTER ALL BY YOURSELF
(in 10 easy steps, by Jen)

Step 1.
Get a fun cook/craft book from your Mom as an early Christmas present. Open it up and decide you immediately MUST make something delightful from it.
Step 2.
Realize you have almost no food supplies in the house. Squeal with glee when you realize you have the necessary ingredients to make something!
Step 3.
Open stick of butter.
Step 4.
Melt in pan along with a bunch of brown sugar.
Step 5.
Cook till bubbly and evil.
Step 6.
Pour over crushed pecans.
Step 7.
Top with chocolate chips. When chips are melty, spread.
Step 8.
Put in refrigerator. Check every 5 minutes to see if chocolate has hardened. When you realize it's taking way too long, move pan to freezer. Continue checking on it way too often.
Step 9.
Decide it's clearly never going to be done, and just take a fork and start chopping away at the edges where the chocolate is solid. Make sure to eat any stray bits that fly around.
Step 10.
Leave for 5 minutes, return, and repeat step 9.

There you have it. In no time, you will have eaten a fair amount of the pan of toffee, and realize that there was a WHOLE STICK of BUTTER in it and wallow in your gluttony the rest of the night.

Slightly related: The butter/cat paradox

click to watch the cat spin round & round!

Lucky Me!

2010-07-22T22:10:00.001-06:00

*I wrote this post in May and forgot to publish it! Oops!*
I just received this adorable matchbox in a swap from my friend Lisa. She makes the most gorgeous things. Look at how perfectly whimsical woodland this is!!

This is the CUTEST pouch that she made for me! I can't get over how fab it is.

The matchbox was crammed full of all these fun treats...

Including these rubber stamps...

And these PERFECT little mushrooms she crocheted!! LOVE!

I sent this matchbox I made to my friend Emma in Sweden, and it turned out really pretty! This was one of my most favorite swaps to make, and to receive. I really love filling up the big 250 count matchboxes!

Outsides:

Insides:

I really love getting fun things in the mail, and I love getting to use all of my fun crafty supplies to make something nice for someone else. I haven't been doing a lot of it lately, but I am really glad I joined swap bot!

clever summer time title

2010-07-07T17:38:00.007-06:00

I just do not love summer. I know a lot of people do. I do not enjoy sweating, sunburns, mosquitos or ants. I dislike water of all sorts (lakes, oceans, swimming pools, hot-tubs...ick), and am afraid of the ice cream truck and its creepy little songs it plays as it slowly trolls about the neighborhood.
That being established, I have had a lovely June, and July is off to a great start. Despite the fact I'm not a fan, I have rather enjoyed this summer so far.

Highlights include:

Celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary with a little jaunt to SLC complete with fun hotel toiletries. (I love hotel toiletries, the fancier the better) We ate fried cheese on a stick, warm gooey chocolate chip cookies, walked for days, and shopped for fun useless things that make me happy. Things like...
This fabulous mushroom plate to hang on my wall. I love it.

S'mores, picnics, and cook-outs in our beautiful canyon with family & friends.
Our annual trip to the Bluebird to eat and then watch the Cache Valley Cruise-In.
Patriotic glitter toes to show off in my...
New summer sandals. Ahhh, arch support.

All of the Hyrum City Sesquicentennial July 4th Celebrations, (I spent the weekend calling it the Bisquickcentennial and it made Cody nuts) complete with parade featuring an awesome fake cow I had the honor of helping create for our ward's float.

Key Lime everything! Nom.
Toy Story 3. I teared up a wee bit.
Another fun trip to Ikea, where I found this awesome bird tray.

New haircut: short, dark, and bangs. Love it.
Getting to see some high school friends. We were (thankfully) out of town for our 15-year class reunion, but I was able to hang out with some of my besties from back in the day. I am however, sad sad sad I missed Joyce while she was here!
Cody went to the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in Colorado without me, and claims he wants me to go with him next year. We'll see. He had a blast and even got me a smashed penny for my collection while he was there!! Yay!

So there you have it. Not too bad considering it was 90+ degrees some days. We'll see if I make it through July & August when it really heats up. Thank goodness for A/C and a nice cool basement. Plus ice cream.

what the sloth?

2010-05-20T07:52:00.002-06:00

Terribly adorable, or just terrifying? You decide.

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.
I think they look like some sort of awesome Jim Henson muppet creation, therefore I give two (scary long fingernailed) thumbs up! (I know fingernailed isn't a word)

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down

2010-05-10T20:48:00.012-06:00

So, I've been kind of MIA on the interwebs lately. I've just been feeling crummy, not sleeping on a decent schedule, have been stressing about things I cannot control, and have just been generally not in a good place. I am sad that my blog hasn't been updated in over a month. So, as is the case when I want to blog, but don't really have anything going on, I like to make a list of things that I'm currently.....

LOVING:

That Cody is done with school till next semester! He did an awesome job in his ridiculously hard MAE 3440 class, and now he gets to hang out with me and do fun things instead of homework. Yay!

These cute little Blowfish flats I got (thanks Mom!!) at Shoe Carnival. They were buy one pair, get one 1/2 off, and I got them in both gray and plaid. They are comfy and cute and walk that line between pants and skirts so I wear them everywhere!

Grapefruit. Specifically, peeling big ruby red grapefruits into tasty segments. I don't know what it is, but they taste SO much better peeled than just cut in half and eaten with a spoon. It's also a fun thing to do, my hands smell all heavenly afterward, and then I save the peels in the freezer and use them to freshen up my garbage disposal now & then.

Also grapefruit, this yummy body butter from the Body Shop! They had a sale before Mother's day and everything was 50% off! I should have bought the larger one, because I love the scent so much! I wander around smelling the back of my hands all day when I have it on.

These adorable birdie hooks I got from my friend Josie in a swap! They are just too cute! She also sent me this way cute package for my bday, so sweet!

The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Oh my goodness, I love Wes Anderson. He is ridiculous, but in a good way. If you've seen any of his movies, you'll recognize his style and humor, and it translates so well to stop-motion animation. We netflixed it, watched it, and bought the DVD the next day. I would say kids over 9 would love it too, but it's more adult humor. Come and borrow it from me if you want to be entertained!

The She & Him album I downloaded for 5$. So lovely, and it sounds like summer....

These Double Chocolate Chunk cookies. I add a little more cocoa and decrease the sugar a smidge to make them EXTRA dark chocolatey. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Wishing:

All my sisters, sisters-in-law, friends, and of course my very own fabulous Mom, a late Happy Mother's day. Hope it was fantastic and you received many terrible meals made by men, and terrible crafts made by kids. :)

Hoping:

That one of us (I'm betting on Cody) gets up the urge to work on our yard soon. We have lived in our house for 6 years, and we still don't have grass planted. We DO have a sprinkler system in place, all we need now is something to water besides rocks and weeds. I hate yard work, so very very much. I'd be fine with a synthetic lawn like the Brady Bunch had, but that would be a waste of our fancy sprinklers no?

That one day I follow through on my promise to give my friends glitter toes. I haven't forgotten, I promise!

That I can wake up early enough some Saturdays this summer to visit the local Farmers Market. We went on opening day, and I didn't look around enough. Or buy enough! Plus, my sister in law Natalie sells hand bound books there some weekends and they are wicked cute!

So there you have it, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth or anything, but I'm also no fun right now, so I'm trying to enjoy the little things. I'm sorry if I've been a slacker friend lately, I'm hoping that May turns out better than April ended up being. *fingers crossed*

You say it's your Birthday...

2010-04-09T11:00:00.003-06:00

I just love it when Cody catches up and is as old as me again. It stinks being older by 4 months. So Happy Birthday to my favorite person in the whole world. The only one I know who likes me enough to put up with my crazy! It's just as well, because I'm crazy about him. I hope he has a great day! ;) xox

Easter Blessings

2010-04-03T00:30:00.001-06:00

Wishing everyone a beautiful Easter weekend!

"He is not here: for he is risen" - Matthew 28:6

We all scream

2010-04-02T09:15:00.001-06:00

For a few days there it actually felt like spring was starting, and we got all excited and bought some ice cream at the store. Oh my goodness, I had forgotten how good this stuff is. Blue Bunny Bordeaux Cherry Chocolate.

I swear I like it even better than Cherry Garcia, but very much the same flavors. I'm sure B&J probably has better quality ingredients, no artificial something or other, and is made by hippies who need jobs or something, but for the money, this stuff is heavenly.

Now it's snowing again, and ice cream seems chilly, so I made chocolate chip cookies instead. I tried this recipe, and they are fantastic.
Oh yeah, the toaster seems to be working out! Hooray!

My kingdom for a toaster.

2010-03-26T19:51:00.010-06:00

We need a new toaster. We received our toaster when we were married in 2000. It's a boring white "Toastmaster" with shiny silver sides that shows every little fingerprint, and a white plastic front with a broken "bagel setting" button. It has never toasted evenly. It has had it's plug replaced because someone (me) broke the old cord. It had a slice of apple cinnamon bread toasted inside it once (Cody) and is now coated in burnt apple sugar concoction inside. It pops up almost immediately unless it is set on the highest setting, and then you have to watch to make sure it doesn't burn. However, it's easier to deal with than buying a new toaster.

It is absolutely ridiculous trying to find a decent toaster. I believe before the day of rampant over researching on the internet, it was possible to walk into a store, decide what you want to pay, find the best featured product in your price range, and buy something. But you can't do that anymore. Noooo, now you have to read reviews online, you have to sift through Amazon, Target, and E-pinions worrying that you will suffer the same fate as the 20% of the people who bought whatever it is you're looking at and HATE it enough to get online and pen an angry paragraph or 2 about said item. You have to wonder if people really buy a $380 toaster?!? (Oh, on sale for $228!)

So, with a "10$ off a 20$ purchase" coupon in hand, we headed to Kohl's. The toasters I'd looked at on their website seemed to be "online only" so we picked out this one based on shiny outsides and cute buttonry. Also, the bagel function seemed to function the way I want it to. It was on sale for $45, (so $35 with our coupon). We skipped home, toaster in hand, only to be drawn, after the fact, to research said toaster online. Wow, did we pick a good one. 7/10 reviews on amazon were ONE star! It was the LOWEST rated toaster at Target. Needless to say, we didn't even unpack the little silver Hamilton Beach toaster from its box, and took it back today. Sorry I wasted your coupon Megan!!!!

Arrrrrrggggghhhhh! Why is this so difficult!?! Why am I wasting a blog post on toasters?!?! Because I love toast. I really do. I love it. I love bagels, and english muffins, and plain old toasty bread. While our first toaster was not great, I am picking this one out myself and I just don't want to be unhappy with my purchase. Even though our 20$ toaster has worked fine-ish for 9 years, I am not willing to buy a cheap-o one for myself. So that being said, these are my top contenders (recently edited to reflect my research on the Cuisinart one that I found out didn't toast one side of the bagels, but rather both sides):

Both Kitchenaid, both more than I wanted to spend, both have pretty good reviews from most people, but also a fair number of bad reviews. Seriously, how hard is it to make a good toaster?!?! We'll probably try the cheaper plastic one first. In red. At least it will match my new mixer right?

Runner up, Hello Kitty?(Just kidding, it would make me insane.)

Cody's Pick.... doesn't really exist, this is a concept Dyson toaster.

I'm not wearing green right now.

2010-03-17T15:30:00.001-06:00

Every St. Pattys day, I get a craving for cupcakes. Specifically chocolate cupcakes with green frosting. Why? I have no idea, it's super random. I don't celebrate by making corned beef, cabbage, tinting my pancakes (or mashed potatoes, or toilet water) green or anything, and I'm pretty sure cupcakes aren't inherently Irish, but it's just what I do.

Oh, and I just remembered, I might have added green food coloring to the toilet water once, thinking it would be a funny trick on Cody, and he didn't even notice. I think he just thought I'd cleaned the toilet with green stuff instead of the usual blue I guess.
EDIT! update...

Ok, so they're officially Birthday cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles and a plastic candle thingy, but chocolate and green frosting so it's a win!!

Soooo.....is it Spring yet?

2010-03-08T15:16:00.009-07:00

Normally, in March, I'm still in love with the snow, but this year, the snow has been super weak, and I am ready for spring. I've already bought a bag of Easter m&m's with the little bunnies on them (almond ones, they're the best) and it's still a whole month away. Yesterday I received these adorable gummy candies from my pal Mandy, and man oh man are they the cutest!! I am actually glad that I'm not big into fruity gummy things, or I would have to make the terrible choice to enjoy their cuteness, or try eating them, but they are safe with me. I wonder what will happen if they get dried out? Will they stay cute? Could I put a hole in the top hang them? Am I really writing a whole blog post about gummy candy? I better write some more junk below the cute picture.

Things I am looking forward to this spring:

Getting our Christmas lights down off the roof. Yep, they're still up there. (edit, apparently, they're not! haha, see comments section)
Riding my bike! Yay! It's my favorite!
Sandals. Time to do new glitter toes. Anyone want?
Getting my hair cut. Ok it has nothing to do with spring, I just love getting it cut and want it done soon.
Spring break! A whole week of not having to make Cody do homework!
Sun, believe it or not, I've missed it.
Um, that might be it.

Oh, and I just noticed I already named a post "is it spring yet?" about 2 years ago. Shows how innovative I am. ;)

Mushrooms, meringue, & mixers

2010-02-22T22:35:00.004-07:00

Tonight I made these adorable mushrooms out of meringue. I have seen them on the internet for ages, and never quite had a reason to try them. They were fun/easy, and are Garden Gnome approved!

Well, after my Valentines gift from Cody arrived, I've been looking for excuses TO bake things!

It's beeeeeutiful. It's the Kitchenaid 90th Anniversary stand mixer. It has a candy apple red paint job, a glass bowl, and shiny silver attachments. I am in heaven. I am not a good enough cook to necessitate it, but I have wanted one since I was a newlywed and this is the one I wanted. When Williams-Sonoma had it on SALE right at Valentines, Cody thought I should have it. I feel super guilty about owning such a marvelous machine! Saturday I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and it powered through the dough like butter. Making the meringues was fun too, watching the beater spin at a million miles an hour. I'm still in shock every time I walk into the kitchen and see it sitting there. We're thinking of naming her Ruby So-ho after our dead fish, Ruby So-Ho, who was named after my favorite Rancid song... Ruby So-ho. Orly?

Warning: Anti-cat-on-counter-tangent below. If you love your kitty enough to let her sit on the same surface as your food, don't read this!

While I was reading up on how to make the mushrooms, I came across a photo of a cat sitting on the counter while her human made them. Now, I like my cat, she's great and all, but I do NOT let her sit, stand, or walk on the counter. If we ever catch her trying, she gets in no small amount of trouble. I understand people love their pets. But come ON, your cats feet are the LAST thing you want on a surface that you have food on and around. Your cat uses a litter box for crying out loud! Plus, cat hair in your food, ick. That is just my little rant about cats on counters. If you let your cat on your kitchen counter and am offended, I'm sorry, and let me know how that parasite in your intestines works out for you. ;) Haha. No, really.

So this post is all over the place, and apparently I'm a little punchy tonight. Blame the sugar, the adorable, mushroom shaped sugar. I guess I could have just said blame it on the mushrooms, but that's another meaning altogether....

Olympic Love

2010-02-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

So did anyone else fall in love while watching the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics? Because I really want a pair of those adorable Canadian team mittens.

They are sold out at the online places I have been able to find them, and it's no wonder, they're only 10$! I remember in 2002, when our very own Salt Lake City hosted the world, I wanted one of those cute (were they really though??) berets our Olympic team wore, and I found them in a shop in SLC, they were ridiculously expensive. And that was after the Olympics were over.

Still, I've always thought Canadians were awesome, I had a pen pal of sorts from Canada when I attended USU for a year, and he played hockey and everything. I'd jump for joy if I could get my hands in a pair of those cute red mittens.

Seems about right

2010-02-07T01:34:00.000-07:00

I love Ikea. I love Swedish stuff. What could be more fun than finding out what you would be if you were a piece of Ikea furniture with a fun Swedish sounding name?? So here is Jen & Cody. Notice how well we go together! ;)

How is your January?

2010-01-14T00:36:00.006-07:00

Mine is going just swimmingly. And I don't even swim. Just kidding, I rarely go out because of the smog (who am I kidding, I hate going out because I hate people), and I'm tired/snarkey all the time from lack of sun. I think there was a whole week where all I ate was chocolate and cheese. But other than that.... swimmingly. So whenever I am just no fun at all, I like to make a list of things that I am currently....

Loving:

Having my living room back, ie: no more Christmas tree.
Cody's beard growing. Mmmm, scratchy.
Pandora
The challenge of teaching new little 5 year-olds in my church class.
Reusable shopping bags. They fit so much stuff, and look way cuter in my cart.
New king size ultra soft fleecy blanket (thanks ShopKo!)

Nutella. I would not let myself buy this any time I saw it in the grocery store. I knew I would love it, as I love those shiny gold Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolates. Well, when my niece came to visit, we wanted to make crêpes, and she asked if I'd ever put Nutella in them...and that was the end of me not buying Nutella. Forever.

Watching:

Totoro! Cody and I love the Japanese filmaker Miyazaki's cartoons, and this one is one of my new favorites! I don't know how you could watch this movie and not fall in love. Little soot sprites, big fat bunny shaped forest spirits, and cat buses?!!? Seriously, I loved it.

Chuck! I didn't ever watch the first 2 seasons on TV, but caught up with it online this year and was super excited to watch the new season with Cody. I love nerds.

Wanting:

These Salt & Pepper shakers from Pottery Barn. They are gorgeous and want to come live at my house. *edit* UPDATE: these are currently on their way to my house! Thanks to my sister Kerry who literally hunted them down like a tiger and bought them for me for my birthday. Yay! Thanks sis!!

These AMAZING soup and sandwich plates/bowls!! We eat soup/salad/and/or/sandwiches a lot in the winter, and we are always juggling 2 bowls, or a bowl and a plate, and I would use these ALL the time. Plus they are simple and clean and I love the style.

Wishing

I was more fun. I'm seriously such a homebody. We are getting pretty good at our new rock band though. ;)
The inversion would go away and let some sun or snow in. I don't care which one.
That my birthday wasn't in January. It's after Christmas, it's cold and I'm almost sick of everything, food, fun, chocolate...I said almost.
That I was better at leaving Cody alone while he studies. During school, I have to practically banish myself to the basement or I wander to wherever he is and start talking/distracting.

So that is all I can come up with for now. What about you? Love or hate January?

Shiny new year

2010-01-04T00:44:00.000-07:00

So, here I am dwarfed by my Christmas gift.

And then the day after Christmas, a few lovely children arrived from AZ to stay with us for the week! We had fun times, (or at least I did) snowboarding, watching movies, eating mass quantities of food, playing rock band, laying around, shoveling snow, and new years eve festivities. I don't buy into resolutions, and I have no thoughts on how I want this year to compare to last year or anything. So just enjoy some pictures of us in fun hats.

Bring it on 2010.

One more sleep till Christmas!

2009-12-24T23:40:00.002-07:00

This is my beautiful Fontanini natvity. Cody's grandmother gave us the stable for our wedding, and one or a few new pieces each year since! It's both beautiful and durable, since it's plastic and not glass or porcelain like some are. I even took it to church on Sunday to teach the 6 year-olds in my class the nativity story.

Christmas is the season
To celebrate Christ's birth
To rejoice in knowing He came
Bringing peace to all the earth!

also...
One more sleep till Christmas - Muppet Christmas Carol

Thanks for playing along, and counting down till Christmas with me! xox Jen

How lovely are your branches

2009-12-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

I love our fake tree. I just have to say, sometimes I miss the smell, but other than that, I am never sad that we don't have to deal with the trudging about in mud/snow, sap everywhere, needles everywhere, tree watering duty, or cat issues (she's pretty well trained in staying away by now).
I get mad at that ribbon every year I do it, and always think that it looked better the year before, but other than that, I love love love my Christmas tree!

Seasons Greetings!

2009-12-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

This is my Christmas card collection this year. I love it. I love getting mail. LOVE it! I feel a little guilty every card I get and open however, since I didn't send out snail mail cards this year, but rather emailed everyone a picture of Cody and I with some greetings on it. I don't know what exactly contributed to this years lack of card sending. Perhaps time & money, perhaps the fact that in last years photo I was skinnier than I am this year, and perhaps I was just lazy. Either way, thank you to all who have sent real cards, and let me know if I didn't get you on my list of e-card recipients and I'll send you one right away! Hopefully next year I'll be back on the card sending wagon!

Under my tree

2009-12-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

There are no presents under my tree. Just a treeskirt, and this train made out of nesting boxes. They are cute and go inside each other like matryoshka dolls.

Why no presents? Well, our cat enjoys chomping on ribbon, and then she likes to either get really ill and make me worry, or I get to clean the carpet. Either way it's not worth it.
On a related note, this is one of my favorites...Ribbons Cat

Eskimo Kisses

2009-12-20T19:11:00.001-07:00

Since my last photo of my wee self was such a hit, I dug out this other photo from Christmases past. I love this one to bits. I would love to still own that furry yellow coat. And knee socks! Yay!

Reindeer Games

2009-12-19T23:21:00.010-07:00

I just love this little print from Hide N Seek of the children playing in the snow. I'm too sleep deprived to come up with anything else to say here.

A week from today...

2009-12-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

Is Christmas day. And I'm kind of stressed.

Funny how a little thing like a cold can make things that should be fun, no fun at all. I am boring with these Christmas pictures, they are all of my ornaments lately. I'm sorry. I just need to clear my head long enough to wrap, send, and deliver, oh and craft the things to wrap, send and deliver. It makes me glad I chose not to send out Christmas cards this year. If I usually send you a snail mail card, don't feel bad, I'm sending out e-cards next week. :)

Pine cones, and holly berries

2009-12-17T16:43:00.000-07:00

Or just pine cones. Little silver and white glass ones.

I love buying just a few new ornaments each year, and this one I found way before Christmas, (when the stores have the stuff up, but the holidays aren't even on the radar yet), it might be my favorite find this year.

Polar Express

2009-12-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

I don't really have anything fun to say today. I went to bed/woke up with some wicked swollen tonsils, and am now just sitting here thinking about how mad I am about it. I just have so many things I need to be doing that being sick won't help. But on to the happy.
Cody really loves trains. He has train sets. He owns more train ornaments than anyone I know. Any time his Mom or Grandma find train ornaments they buy him one (kind of like when they see cute snowflakes they buy them for me). Luckily, I like trains too, and find them fun to decorate with at Christmas.
oh, and p.s. I hated the movie Polar Express.

In the meadow we can build a snowman.

2009-12-15T22:53:00.000-07:00

Nobody panic, but I might be running out of ideas for pictures. I only have 10 days left to go, I can't stop now! Anyway, I only turn this guy on if we are hanging out in the living room where he lives, but he's fun. His lantern has a cool bulb in it, that flickers like a real flame.

Christmases Past

2009-12-14T23:41:00.010-07:00

I dug up this little beauty from the super early 80's. My guess is 1981. Anyway, I am loving my lacy red dress that comes all the way up my neck (I wonder if it was itchy?), my full forehead of bangs, and the tinsel on our very real, very full, Christmas tree.

Snow (hey oh!)

2009-12-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

Cute little snow-globe that Cody's aunt gave me one year. I am so happy it's been snowing for the last 3 days. It's a little warm and slushy, but after days of cold cold cold it's heaven sent.

Also, Chili Peppers. Go have a listen!

Wish

2009-12-12T21:12:00.000-07:00

Everyone has a Christmas wish right?

Visions of sugarplums

2009-12-11T23:55:00.005-07:00

Oh yum.

Our first neighbor treats of the season. I love getting to eat homemade fudge, cookies, and all sorts of other stuff without making it myself! I also love making that kind of stuff myself and taking it to neighbors! Haha!
I haven't decided WHAT to do this year, any good ideas??

Winter white

2009-12-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

I kind of can't believe I've actually posted every day for 10 days straight! I almost didn't remember today, we just got home from caroling around the neighborhood in almost 0° weather. I don't know if I will be able to come up with another 15 pictures, but I am going to try!
So, this is just a sparkley white poinsettia that I found to put in my little wall vases. I usually have red sunflowers in them, but I like the winter whites to go with all my snowflake decor. The metal sign and vinyl lettering is from scribble it.

Not a partridge or a pear tree

2009-12-09T17:14:00.002-07:00

But my Christmas tree and a cute little Victorian vintagey style clip on glass bird with black feathers. I was obsessed with finding one of these guys last year and it took me a while. This year I've seen them all over. Isn't that just how it goes? I have to stop myself from buying all of the cute sparkley ones with swirly feathers that I keep seeing at Michael's this year. We like birds in the winter, we have a birdfeeder out our back window that they feast upon every day all winter long. It drives our cat crazy. And the neighbor cats too judging by all the kitty footprints in the snow.

Just for fun, check out this cool painting of the partridge in the pear tree by Chris Buzelli. I love it!

Saint Nicholas

2009-12-08T15:54:00.003-07:00

Apparenly December 6th is Saint Nicholas day. This year, Cody's mom gave us a gift, and told us not to open it until December 6th. I was confused, until her card told me about good old St. Nick. Inside was this beautiful Longaberger snowflake cookie basket. These baskets are crazy, and I could never purchase one myself, but I looooove it. Cody keeps telling me now it needs to be filled with cookies. I did just receive a fun dala horse cookie cutter from Sweden in an awesome Christmas swap I just did. That would be so fun to fill this basket full of some sort of traditional Swedish cookies.

Do you bake around the holidays? To eat yourself, or share with others?

Sparkle and shine

2009-12-07T16:42:00.001-07:00

I don't know what makes me happier, that I got these huge glitter snowflakes for practically free after Christmas on clearance last year, or that they adorn my new mirror so fabulously.

Picture a Christmas

2009-12-06T19:14:00.001-07:00

One day I want a special little tree for just these picture frame ornaments. The first Christmas Cody and I were married, I bought the candy cane striped ornament at Hallmark that says "Our 1st Christmas Together" on it. I loved having it on our tree so much, that every year since I've bought some sort of picture ornament and put a picture from that year in it. They are some of my most favorite ornaments. This year our new silver snowflake frame has a picture from our trip to AZ, because it was just about the most fun thing we did all year. It's a fun hunt every year to find a new picture frame for our yearly photo.

Let it snow baby... let it reindeer...

2009-12-05T18:40:00.005-07:00

Hmmmm...what was that I was saying yesterday about no snow? Yay! I know this isn't a lot, but it makes me happy anyway. My favorite part about this picture is the dangly snowflake lights that fade on and off. They are on a timer, so if it's after dark, and our blue lights aren't on because forgot to turn them on, our little snowflakes are there, slowly blinking away.

Anyone want to come shovel my driveway now? Haha......

Lonley Snowman

2009-12-04T23:58:00.002-07:00

I have snowflakes and snowmen decorating every part of my home. But none yet in my yard! I know it's only the first week of December, but it's so cold, and cold is no fun without the snow!

Cinnamon and Pine Trees

2009-12-03T11:02:00.003-07:00

My third day of December photo is dedicated to the delicious smells of Christmas.

This is my cute snowflake scentsy warmer that my mother-in-law bought me for Christmas last year. She didn't even know I was already obsessed with their yummy smelling blocks of wax! Right now I have some sort of homey cinnamon scent in it. I go back and forth all December long between cinnamon flavors, and ones that smell like pine trees. Since we have a fake tree, and Cody and I both grew up with real trees, I miss the piney scent, and it's fun to have that smell in our house, even if artificially. I really do like baking treats, but the next best thing to the house filled with real baking smells, is plugging in a little light bulb and letting it warm a square of welcoming wax.

What are your favorite Christmas smells? They say that smells are powerfully linked to memories, and I find I am much happier when my house smells good!

Bells are ringing

2009-12-02T15:48:00.004-07:00

The second picture of December might just be one of my favorite things about the Christmas season.

Since I took this photo, my number of Christmas songs has already increased from 289 to 292 thanks to iTunes. I go there all month long and buy a few new songs a week if they have anything that suits my fancy. I absolutely love any Christmas song sung by Stevie Wonder or Roger Whittaker. Christmas is the time of year I embrace all music styles, even those I don't normally care for like country, Mannheim Steamroller, Sarah McLachlan, or even Josh Groban. ;) A random sampling of my favorites (linked to my blip.fm if you care to listen) listed below. Enjoy!
"Winter Song" Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson
"A Soalin' " - Peter, Paul & Mary
"Carol of the Bells" - The Bird & The Bee
"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" - Belle & Sebastian
"Valley Winter Song" - Fountains of Wayne
"No Christmas for Me" - Zee Avi
"I Saw Three Ships" - Sufjan Stevens
"All That I Want" - The Weepies
and just for Cody... "Christmas Reindeer" - The Knife

And you? Christmas music all month long or are you already sick of it because of how long they've been playing it over the speakers in the stores??

Christmas Advent

2009-12-01T16:45:00.005-07:00

I use and love flickr for posting and sharing my photos online. I have "met" a few people on there due to their photographs. I swap with a bunch of them too. It's great fun. So one of my flickr friends Emma had a great idea to post a picture every day till Christmas, as sort of a photo advent. I love it! I don't know if I will actually have the focus to get a picture up every day, but here we go with December 1st.

So, ok todays picture isn't super fun, but I've been dragging my feet about getting ready for Christmas this year, and yesterday Cody brought up my boxes. This is about 1/2 of them. We bought some big red & green plastic bins that I hope most of this stuff will fit in when I take it all down, and that I can just do away with the boxes.

How about you? All decorated? All excited?? All done shopping???

Sugar and Spice

2009-11-09T23:42:00.004-07:00

Here are some fun girly creations of mine. First the sugar:

Cupcake Bottle cap pincushion - made for a swap for someone who liked pink, girly, and sparkley stuff. You use a bottle cap (I used a spice jar lid) to create the base, and then sew felt around it. I really loved the little bead "sprinkles" on it.

The baby name blocks I made for my sister Kerrys baby Abigail. I loved these so much!

Then the spice:

My brother Mike was selling his house, and he had some old windows I'd been coveting, so before he had new siding put on, we took out the old windows and he gave me one to play with. I took out the glass panes, sanded for 40 days and nights (though somehow it was still not enough) spray painted the whole thing bright red, and put 12 little mirrors in the back. It is on my wall at the top of my stairs and I loooove it!

I also mod podged some paper on to the top of a little side table, but the results were less than blog worthy. Let's just say, if you buy one of those permanent ink pads, and then use it to ink the edges of something, and then drop it ink side down in the middle of said project, the results are not great. ; )

Just in time

2009-10-30T20:37:00.002-06:00

I just finished our Halloween costumes tonight.

Cody's skeleton hoodie:

My mask on a stick:

If you come trick-or-treating at my house you'll get tiny little bags of sour patch kids or swedish fish. Cody picked them out and I hope the kids will like. I don't want to be the house with the lame treats. I can't compete with our neighbors across the street who for the last 2 years have given out full size candy bars though. Oh well.

Boo!

2009-10-15T05:15:00.000-06:00

I am kind of in love with these blocks I've been making. Also with this paper from Basic Grey. I first made some cute letters blocks for my sisters new baby Abigail that spelled out her name. I will post pictures of them on another post. I wanted to do these ones now for Halloween. I then made a little set for my friends baby Eli, and then a set of these BOO ones for my sister in laws birthday. I loved them so much I had to make set for myself. They are easy, but time intensive. It takes me a whole night while doing laundry to finish a set of 3. Maybe I'm just slow. Cody cut the wood for me, we bought some really nice poplar at Lowes, then I sand, paint, glue, sand again, paint again, and seal. Then add letters which I cut out by hand with an exacto knife, glue them on, and seal again. Good times.On a side note, how do we feel about adding my name & blog address to photos? I've never had anyone steal anything from my blog that I know of, and I've never made anything on here that someone else hasn't made first or better, but I know that people totally snatch stuff from blogs too. It feels a little presumptuous of me to think anyone would want my photos, and I don't want it to look too pretentious, but then again, I really like that font I used for it. Haha. Opinions??

Arizona Road Trip

2009-09-11T13:02:00.007-06:00

Cody and I love road trips! Love love love them. We got to go to Flagstaff Arizona, to visit my sister Kerry and be there for the blessing of her 9th baby Abigail. And also, GRAND CANYON BABY! (I said that about a million times on the trip. Remember the episode of friends, where they are going to London for Ross's wedding, and Joey says "London Baby!" a million times? Hahaha!)
The drive was beautiful. We got to see some fun places we'd never been before!
Big Rock Candy Mountain:

Lake Powell Overlook:

Glen Canyon Bridge/Dam:

On Friday, we took off on a little drive by ourselves to explore Flagstaff. We drove up to the parking lot of the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort:

Found a random dirt road in the trees to explore: (so very Cody)

And stopped to admire trains (which run EVERYWHERE in Flagstaff)

My sister Tammy and baby Abigail:

Niece Brytne, Sister Kerry, and Me:

My neices Brytne & Haylee, and nephew Nick putting up with Cody & I driving them all around the hills of Flagstaff:

Cody at the ski resort parking lot:

A spider the size of a tennis ball outside Kerrys house:

Nick showing off his drum skills (which are amazing):

The post-blessing feast:

The Navajo Bridge:

The North Rim Lodge:

Us at the Grand Canyon:

Grand Canyon Baby!

Squirrel:

Headed home near Bryce:

We had a fabulous time. We brought home a few t-shirts, a few stickers, a few postcards, 4 smashed pennies for my collection, and 400+ pictures. We didn't get to spend any time in Bryce national park like we'd wanted to, but we are determined to go back and see that area. It looked beautiful. Thanks so all (Mom, Kerry, Tammy, Mike) who helped us have such a great time!

Lazy Bloggers Post

2009-08-15T19:04:00.009-06:00

I am working on a few projects right now, and want to blog about them, I'm not done with any of them yet. So instead of posting the in progress pictures, I though this was hilarious (and has many options for you super busy on the go mom types). The following blog post is not technically written by me, but is all thanks to the Lazy Bloggers Post Generator. Enjoy.

Oh for crying out loud! I just noticed I have not updated this since last month... You would not believe how hard it is being waited on hand and foot and generally lounging around. I hope you still love me!

I am absolutely consumed with curling my hair, being distracted by the shiny, just generally being a hindrance to anyone unfortunate to cross my path, my day often feels wasted from midday to well after sun-down. I am looking at rectifying this. But who cares.

I make a solemn vow I will make more of an effort to blog more often until the nice men in the white coats come back. No, really! Don't hold your breath though, you're likely to turn blue.

(p.s. it almost pains me to have this on here with such terrible grammar/punctuation!)

Glittering Piggies

2009-07-31T15:28:00.010-06:00

I am not the type of person to pay to have my nails done. I only had fake nails once, and that was my wedding day. Luckily I wore gloves most of the day, because the nails felt so weird on, that I look weird in any shot that shows my hands. I have never had a manicure, or a pedicure. I've never wanted to. Until I saw my friend Shellie's toes one day. They were sparkling like a million turquoise diamonds. She told me they were called sparkle toes or glitter toes or something, so I googled it to see, and it looked fun, but kind of high maintenance. Then I found this blog where she describes how to do your own! So I bought 18 colors of Martha Stewart glitter at Walmart and I was hooked. I have done mine 4 times since then, and every time I change colors someone notices them and says they want glitter toes too! I did them on my SIL Nataile, and last night on some friends from my neighborhood. They all turned out so cute!

After they left Cody looked at my toes and was disappointed to see that they were still red as they had been for a few weeks. So after he went to bed I did mine again a light sagey green.
Also, toes are just weird and looking at pictures of them up close make them even weirder.

Anyway, let me know if you'd like in on the next round of glittering up your toes. It's way easier to do on someone else than yourself, so come on over, put your feet up, and leave sparkling.

new blog name!

2009-07-22T13:54:00.010-06:00

Ok, so here is the deal, I love my old "My So-Called Blog" name, but it's not exactly, original. Of course it came from the best 90's show around (which I totally own on DVD if anyone wants to borrow & watch!), but I am pretty sure a million other people have a so-called blog. Since apparently I'm all about the 90's, I am changing my blog name to "Hey Jennecy", which is of course from the song "Hey Jealousy" by the Gin Blossoms, but with my nickname Jennecy thrown in. I am keeping the 'so-called blog' part in there too, it just won't be the main name. The funny story, is that only ONE person ever called me Jennecy. One day Jared S. just said "I'm going to call you Jennecy." Then soon afterwards, Cody was trying to find a username for me on AOL, and JenB (my actual nickname among friends) was taken, and the only thing he could think of was Jennecy. I have had my aol username since like 96, and use jennecy as a username wherever possible, and it's only rarely taken. So I've completely embraced it as my internet alter ego.

Of course I could just go normal and name it something like, "Morgan Family Musings". I know how much blog names love alliteration.

Chocolate Woodland Critter Sugar Cookies

2009-07-13T10:19:00.005-06:00

I bought these fabulous cookies cutters last time I was at Ikea, and I was so excited to use them.
Rather than regular sugar cookies, I thought the shapes would look adorable in a dark brown, so I set about making chocolate sugar cookies. I found this recipe for the cookies, and made dark chocolate ganache to pipe around the top. My favorites are the hedgehogs, and the squirrels. I also had some teeny tiny cookie cutters from a swap of a garden gnome and a squirrel.

Natalie piping like a pro.

So cute. And SO yummy! My favorite part is that they didn't spread as they cooked like sugar cookies are wont to do. They also tasted fabulous, kind of like brownies.
Hedgehogs, Squirrels, & Snails

Baby Bears, teeny gnomes, & tiny squirrels

Fox & Moose

Jen Sews! - Café Curtains

2009-07-09T01:10:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I sew. Today I did some sewing. I had decided I wanted café curtains in my kitchen instead of just a top valance, so that neighbors couldn't see in my kitchen window if I decided to wander in there in my pj's or whatever. Which I do just about every day.
I decided I wanted to get curtain clips, and find some cute dishcloths and hang them right up. Well I found what I wanted, (hooray!) but they were at anthropologie (boo!) making them both annoyingly faux vintage, and super annoyingly expensive! By the time I got 2 dishtowels shipped to me, it would have been over 40$! Yikes! So, I set about finding something cheaper.

stupid cute anthropologie dish towel!

Once I bought the curtain rod of my dreams, (thank you ikea!) I was inspired to go find some plain and cheap dish towels and cute them up myself. I found some Heidi Grace fabric at Joann with trees, ladybugs, mushrooms and birds on it, bought some white and red rickrack, got out my trusty Hello Kitty sewing machine, and set about making some café cuteness. (I really like that I figured out how to do the é thing, so I am using it all over the place!) I had bought a set of white flour sack dish towels from walmart for like $1 each, and only needed to hem them a little to make them fit. One of them was totally not square though, and I could not cut it straight for the life of me. Oh well. The other one went quite smoothly, and now I have the cutest curtains in the land. I love how they let the light in, but keep the peepers out.

see for yourself!

Now is the time in my blog, where I post the random photo of Cody and I taken by ourselves. We went for a little walk in the greenery with some friends. I need to hike with 3-year olds more often, their little legs get worn out before I do, and I don't get so tired! ; )

whimsical woodland matchbox

2009-07-05T16:40:00.004-06:00

I hope everyone had a fabulous 4th of July! Wheee! Now on to the random pictures of junk I've made. ;)

This was my first 250 count matchbox I've done for swap-bot. They are HUGE! I've done the little 32 count ones a bunch of times, but this one was kind of a challenge to do. The theme was "whimsical woodland" so I had to do it of course. My sister in law Natalie was also in this swap, so we made our matchboxes together, which was super fun to be able to chat and talk and share ideas. Usually I end up asking Cody for advice, who tries hard, but really, how is he supposed to care what ribbon I use on what paper? Anyway, I used a bit of my very precious farbenmix ribbon for the outside, and even made a little squirrel out of felt. I made a set of cupcake picks, and some little clips, and gave her my shrinky dink hedgehog charm! Too cute!

Inn love ; )

2009-06-23T00:10:00.000-06:00

So I love quaint little bed & breakfast inns. I love the cutesy little details, and the fancy pampering things they do. For our 9 year anniversary, Cody & I went back to the inn where we went on our honeymoon 9 years ago. It was super fun! Our room had a hand carved canopy bed, they put "Happy Anniversary" balloons in the room, a fruit & cheese plate on the nightstand, turndown service with mints and roses on our pillows that night, a big jetted bathtub, and a HUGE Sunday brunch the next morning with 5 courses. It was fun to be fancy for a weekend. Because we are not fancy people at all.

Cody hanging out with the stuffed boar!
Driving home through beautiful American Fork canyon.

Still Crazy After All These Years!

2009-06-22T00:15:00.001-06:00

What do I love more than celebrating anniversaries? Could it be cupcakes? Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting perhaps? Decorated with my latest crafty obsession cupcake picks?!?

This means forever.9 Years and counting...

cupcakes... again!?!?

2009-06-11T00:58:00.008-06:00

I know. I seem a little, obsessed with the cupcakes lately. I promise I am not. At least not any more than I am with owls, mushrooms, garden gnomes or hello kitty stuff. ;)

Anyway, my cute little nephew Clay is officially 1/2 a year old, so we had a little 6 month party. I made cupcake picks for the yummies, and Natalie & I made an adorable little party hat.

He looked really cute and was totally happy to wear it!

Then he decided what he really wanted was cupcakes. I don't blame him. They were pretty yummy.
Now I just have to resist going and getting one right now to snack on. The are in my kitchen mocking me, I can feel it.

Cupcakes and Fairy Jars

2009-06-06T12:30:00.003-06:00

Yay. So I made the cutest matchbox for a Cupcake themed swap. It was all pink and cute and yummy. I made some cute cupcake picks for her to put in real cupcakes too. They had... cupcakes on them.

wrapped up and ready to send

I also joined a swap for a tiny (4oz) jar with a captured fairy inside. It was harder than I thought! I painted a little wooden knob like a mushroom, and then put paper grass and green glitter in the jar with a bunch of mod podge, and then glued in the little fairy I made. I hung a dragonfly from the lid, then glued the whole thing shut. It was super fun to make, and I was a little sad to see her go.

Then, I made this artist trading card (ATC) with a captured fairy jar on it! Cody thought that was funny. I sewed a sheet of plastic onto the jar, so she was captured between the paper & plastic and it turned out awesome.

Other than that, I haven't been accomplishing much. As of now, the lead name for my gnome is Reuben. Possibly Reuben Roland for a full name.

Name this Gnome!

2009-05-26T21:05:00.000-06:00

So, I received this little guy from a fantastic friend, and he needs a name. I am ever so much in love with him, but can't settle on what to call him. Ideas I have:

Alfie
Liam
Leon
Reuben
Johan
Roland

Any other good ideas? I think Gnomes are German by nature, so any good German sounding names you can come up with would be great. If you don't like any of my ideas, give me yours and if I pick it, I'll send you a treat!!

Happy little guy!

2009-05-21T22:00:00.008-06:00

So, when we got our new iMac, Cody also bought us the Adobe Suite, since it was a deal while he's still a student. I know my way around Photoshop, but I have always wanted to learn to do vector drawings in Illustrator! Well, I found a tutorial the other night and I made this adorable Octopus. He's such a happy little guy!
Now I can hardly take credit for him, since it was a step by step thing where I just followed along and only had to figure out how to make it work when the instructions assumed I knew things. The legs (tentacles?) took me forEVER though.

So to see if I retained any knowledge, I made myself this little strawberry guy from scratch using the techniques I learned making the octo-guy!
Not too bad eh? If I ever end up opening an etsy shop, he'll be my avatar. I like the funny faces. So now I am excited and want to learn more! If anyone uses Illustrator and has any good tips for me, or places with good tutorials, let me know!
p.s. I just added this little strawberry to my icon at the top of the blog address bar. So cute!

Posting more pictures of things I've made...

2009-05-19T19:10:00.002-06:00

So I think I've written on here about ATC's (artist trading cards) before. I can't remember and can't be bothered to go back and read my own bloggings. Anyway, here are some of the little works of art (hah!) that I have been sending out in my swaps. They are pretty fun to make, since the only real rule is the size (2.5 x 3.5), and I like that I don't need to go buy stuff to make them, and they only take an envelope and a stamp or 2 to send out.

Themes:
1- Little Miss Sunshine - I picked the brother Dwayne from the movie. I love him. I forgot to take a photo before I got it all wrapped up to send.
2- Vintage - Adding crowns and wings to old pictures is fun, if not exactly my style
3- The 4 Seasons - I loved this one! These are my favorites ever.
4- St. Patty's - Green, rainbows & gold glitter of course

Themes:
1& 4- Heroes - My favorite character is Hiro, I made one card for 2 partners.
2&3- Cat - I made one of my cat Molly, and the other was a painting I found that inspired me. They both went to the same partner.

So that is how I've been letting my creative spurts run wild lately. I did get my sister in law to join swap-bot, and she's already making cute stuff. Right now I am working on a captured fairy jar, a cupcake matchbox, and a captured fairy jar ATC - which is kind of funny. I also picked the theme for an I <3 the 80's ATC swap between me and a flickr friend, and now I am having the HARDEST time coming up with something for it. I think because I love too many things from the 80's, and I can't pick. What is your favorite 80's theme??

Go take a hike

2009-05-11T15:24:00.007-06:00

I hope you all had a happy Mother's day. My brother Mike bought his wife Natalie a fun hikey baby carrier for her first Mother's day, and gave it to her a few days early, so on Friday we decided to go try it out! First we had a picnic lunch with my sister Tammy at Hyrum Dam where Mike works. Here we are at my house afterward.
Then Cody came home, and after baby Clay woke up from his nap, we drove up our canyon a little ways and put the wee one in his carrier. He loved it and spent most of the time sucking on and licking the material in front of him. He's quite the drooly little bugger.
We are so lucky to live so close to fabulous outdoor activities! This little trail runs along a river, was pretty easy, grass, a few rocks, and not too many hills, and seriously minutes from my house. Here is Cody playing on some of the big rocks.
On the way down, Cody gave Natalie's shoulders a break and took the baby carrier. Awww. Cute.
Clay fell asleep sometime on the way down. The hike was about a mile long, so we went 2 miles round trip, not too bad for our first hike of the season. I was a little tired at the end, but not sore or anything the next day so huzzah. I'm not what you would call "in shape" (hahahhaha!) so if I could do this, anyone could. I'd like to go hike this again soon.
Us at the end. The end.

wherein I muse about...um boobs.

2009-05-08T01:30:00.002-06:00

Just a little warning, if you go out to dinner with some really cute (and hopefully not easily offended!) 20something-30something girls who happen to be in the following states of their lives...
a) pregnant
b) breastfeeding current babies
c) not breastfeeding but have had babies previously

the talk will ultimately revolve around the following subjects:
1. boobs
2. breastfeeding
3. the pain of breastfeeding, aka boob pain
4. poop - mostly baby poop
5. reality TV

**** disclaimer: I love babies, applaud breastfeeding and tolerate poop. I am not evil nor do I hate those who are happily having babies. I might try it one day, but don't hold your breath. Hooray for babies! ****

forest cuteness

2009-04-20T23:35:00.008-06:00

Sometimes the little things in life are the most fun. I am in love love love with this ribbon I got. I found it on etsy, but it's imported from Germany. I think that somehow makes it even cuter. Now for the hard part: what do I make with it? I want to do something real with it that I can keep forever, see all the time, or possibly wear. What do you think? Sew an apron? Edge a cute bag or wallet? Cafe curtains for my kitchen window? Hair clippy? Picture frame? Comment & give me your ideas please!!

bad mood zone

2009-04-16T14:06:00.017-06:00

this is sooooo me this week. you've been warned.

***

***

***
i'm on my 3rd straight day of pajamas and hoodies. i have given up all food groups without the word "junk" or "carbs" in them. my hair is unwashed and shiny with unwashedness, and there are 3 days of dishes in and around my sink. my swearing has increased by at least 80%. the cat is hiding from me, and my husband is a little afraid to ask what's for dinner. i suspended my facebook account lest i have to look at one more adorable picture of kids at baby animal day. i've even given up on using caps for my words that usually require it. take that lower case i.
but i sincerely hope you have a nice day.

Birthday Wishes...

2009-04-09T01:20:00.007-06:00

to my husband who is a few months younger than me, so I love it when he catches up!!

xox!
i less than three you!